Here are 24 of my random thoughts about fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle. As always, I am not speaking in black and white terms.
1. While there are an abundance of excellent exercises, there is no such thing as a ”best” exercise. The effectiveness, practicality, and safety of exercises vary on an individual basis.
2. Coaches need to fit exercises to the individual, rather than adopting the opposite approach and force-fitting the individual to specific exercises.
3. The ‘’no pain, no gain’’ mentality is preventing many people from being able to train consistently, and is contributing to inferior results.
4. As I’ve said countless times, consistency trumps intensity.
5. Do you want to tax your muscles but want to give your spine or other joints a bit of a break? Performing negative reps, pause reps, or using band resistance, are just a few of many ways you can achieve this. As always, do what works and feels the best for YOU.
6. Training for 30-60 minutes, or even simply performing movements of your choice, takes up just 2-4% of your overall day. Movement is medicine, so aim to take your medicine every day.
7. The second you focus on what you CAN do versus fixating on your current limitations, you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish. It’s pretty awesome, and empowering.
8. Many people think they need to constantly switch up their workouts and/or exercises to ‘’shock their body.’’ Guess what, one of many basic ways you can achieve variety without jumping from exercise to exercise, or from program to program, is to make a subtle change in your body positioning. For instance, during a lunge, if you adopt a more upright torso position, have a shorter distance between your front and back foot, and place the knee of your front/working leg so it is in closer proximity to your toes (if this feels good), you will target more quads. Conversely, if you adopt more of a forward lean in your torso, and have a longer distance between your front and back foot, you will target more posterior chain. This is just one of MANY examples I could use.
9. There is no written rule that you MUST perform a certain exercise. There are many alternatives that will produce similar results.
10. In order to become excellent or elite at basically anything, you must master the basics first. This might not be glamorous or marketable, but owning the fundamentals is absolutely necessary.
11. Also, complicated doesn’t necessarily mean better, or even tougher. In many instances, basic works best.
12. Like training, there is no one size fits all approach to nutrition. You must figure out what works and feels the best for YOU.
13. Believe it or not, unless you are doing ridiculously long and frequent bouts of cardio, or are spending hours per day lifting weights, the majority of people out there are NOT overtraining. If you feel like you might be, take a look at your nutrition, sleep, stress levels, and body maintenance work. Take good care of your body and your mind, and your body will usually respond positively.
14. When you are deadlifting and are starting from the ground (or blocks), imagine that you are pushing the ground away from you.
15. Proper strength training will not make you slow.
16. Performing squats, deadlifts, or most other exercises using a Bosu or another unstable surface is not in your best interest, and is counterproductive for most goals. Stick to performing these movements on solid ground.
17. That being said, Bosu’s can serve a purpose in improving shoulder health, and can be used to help people who have already sustained an ankle sprain. Please note that I said ‘’already.’’ Read my new article The Ways You Can Use A Bosu here.
18. Performing single leg exercises on a stable surface is a great way to improve balance. Single leg deadlifts, skater squats, and lunging variations are just a few of many examples I could use.
19. If your warm-up takes longer than your actual workout, you need to reassess what you are doing. Do a warm-up that best prepares YOU for your workout.
20. And no, I am not talking about specific warm-ups for sprinters. This might apply to 0.0000001% of the population, and my point above is relevant to the vast majority of the population.
21. A pet peeve of mine (and I am sure MANY others) is when somebody writes a post that is relevant to 99.999999% of the population, and someone chimes in with a standpoint that is relevant to maybe 0.000001% of the population, if that, and their tone is usually anything but helpful and well-intended.
22. Sometimes the most empowering feeling is not hitting a PR, or having the number on the scale move in the direction of your choice. It’s finally being able to perform a movement without it hurting.
23. When it comes to your health and fitness (physical AND mental), be proactive, not reactive. But if you must be reactive, it is not too late.
24. While most bodyweight exercises might not be as high risk as exercises that are performed with barbells and dumbbells, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t just as technically demanding and challenging. Using your best form and being present mentally at all times will make or break your results.
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